


A Sorta Fairytale

by SegaBarrett



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Brock-doption, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse and Brock start anew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sorta Fairytale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beyondtherubicon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondtherubicon/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Breaking Bad, and I make no money from this. 
> 
> Warning: Kidnapping (sort of), implications of child neglect.
> 
> A/N: Title is after a song by Tori Amos.

He starts by finding a motel that doesn’t require money up front. Maybe they would have otherwise, but the girl behind the counter seems to feel bad for him. He must look like hell, after all, scars all over his face and wearing clothes that not only don’t fit right but look as if they were not bought for him but instead purchased at random. He needs new clothes. These ones are caked in dirt and blood and far worse things.

He lets the shower run until it’s red hot, burning hot, and Jesse steps inside it, wincing and whimpering as it rubs against the wounds, but gasping in relief at the same time, the way he’d laughed hysterically as he’d driven out of the compound, through the fence, imprisoned and paroled by the devil Mr. White. 

He runs to a little corner store and buys a shaving kit and a pair of scissors. He makes his way back into the shared bathroom around the corner from his room and emerges some version of presentable. Jesse can’t fix the scared look in his eyes, though, the one that gives away that he was living as a caged animal for five months, to be punished or “spoiled” based on his behavior, or some interpretation of it.

He has no phone and no money, but he does have the car, and he sells it to settle the debt on the room. With the extra couple of twenties, he buys a bus ticket back to ABQ.

***

He slips into his house, which is seemingly unwatched by police, and which also smells like several mice have been decomposing in it while he’s been away. He gets what little money he has successfully hidden away, which amounts to a couple hundred that whatever law enforcement agency searched his house hadn’t bothered to confiscate.

Next, he opens a little journal in which he’s written phone numbers and addresses, and runs his finger down the page.

_Inez Cantillo (Andrea’s grandmother), 563 Main Street._

He takes a shivering breath and walks outside to catch an ABQ city bus.

***

Jesse knows that he is not Mrs. Cantillo’s favorite person, _not by a damn sight_ (he shivers as he realizes who’s phrase he’s borrowing), but when she answers the door she seems vaguely relieved to see him. This is the first tip-off that something isn’t right. He wonders if perhaps she’s turning him in to the cops, and he’s somehow okay with that, so long as he sees Brock first, so long as he hugs the boy and somehow… somehow manages a drop in the bucket to make up for what he’s put the kid through.

“Brock isn’t here,” she says, before he can even open his mouth. “I’m assuming you’ve heard.”

Jesse’s throat is dry, and he doesn’t manage a word, so she continues.

“After Andrea died, the state took him,” she hisses bitterly, “I fought them, tooth and nail to get Brock, but the little blonde gringa puta social worker they too thought I was too old, lived in too dangerous a neighborhood.”

“What about the other house? Andrea’s house?”

“The rent stopped coming through about… a week before she died,” Mrs. Cantillo tells him bitterly. “She thought you were dead. I thought you found another girl to play with.”

“I was…” Jesse begins, “I couldn’t come but I… I had someone set to…” _Saul! If I get my hands on that greedy little bitch!_ He drags his hands over his face. “God. I’m so… how do we get him back?”

“We don’t.” Mrs. Cantillo’s face is full of resigned pain. “They let me see him every few weeks. They ruled against me for custody. Threatened to dig into my papers, see if I’m here legally.”

Jesse digs his fingers into his palms.

“The place they have him… is it…?”

“Those people are horrible. They don’t care about him. Only the check.” Suddenly she narrows her eyes on Jesse and urges him inside; he moves in and shuts the door behind him. “You! You had a lot of money… you paid for that house. You didn’t have a job. Sponsor! You’re the big criminal. Rich criminal.”

Jesse opens his mouth and tries to defend himself, but she cuts him off.

“So go get him,” she finishes.

“You mean like… kidnap Brock?” Jesse asks, flabbergasted. “I’ve never…” _But I did help plan that magnet thing… And the train robbery which would have gone off without a hitch if it weren’t for that trigger-happy psycho Todd…_ At that thought, Jesse full-body shivers.

If it’s really that bad… if he’s caused Brock to be thrown into some hell-hole… he owes it to the kid to at least try and get him out.

***

Jesse is pretty freaked out at how easy this is to do, realizing every step of the way that this could have been Jack and his guys snatching Brock instead.

Not that Jesse’s snatching him, not really. That would be a bridge too far – grabbing Brock, scaring him, even for a second. Instead, he’s standing at a bus stop, watching as Brock, still so tiny, so little and alone, walks home for the third time this week because his foster parents didn’t bother to drive or walk to the school and get him.

He waits to make his appearance. If Brock doesn’t want him around, he’ll turn and go. But maybe it’s not that easy.

After all, at first he had only planned to come in and tell him goodbye.

“Brock,” he calls softly, so softly he’s not even sure he truly spoke at first.

But Brock’s head turns and his little eyes go wide, excited.

“Jesse!” Brock throws himself at him, clinging to his leg, to his middle. 

“Hi kid,” Jesse whispers, overcome and trying not to cry. “Listen, I was… do you want to come with me and see your grandma?”

Brock nods excitedly, and as they walk in that direction he can’t help but notice Brock’s skinnier frame and more nervous gait. It chills him to the bone, like a mirror reflecting his own skittish demeanor back at him. He’s feeling good about doing this after all.

***

“He can’t stay here. They’ll come looking… And I don’t really think… I’d do too good in prison. I’m a little old,” Mrs. Cantillo tells him, as she packs all of Brock’s things that she can fit into his little backpack. “But worse… they’d take him back there. No.”

“We have until 2AM,” Jesse tells her dryly. “That’s when the foster parents roll in from the bar.” His stakeout skills from Mike had both come in handy and destroyed what was left of his faith in humanity.

“Then you’d better hit the road.” Mrs. Cantillo hands him a set of keys. “The truck is in the driveway. Leave it at the bus station and I’ll take a taxi and get it tomorrow. Put the keys in the glove compartment.”

Brock sadly looks up at Mrs. Cantillo and hugs her tight.

“Oh, Brock,” she whispers, “I love you, baby.” She rubs his back and looks up at Jesse. 

“You better be a decent man and raise this boy right, Jesse Pinkman,” she tells him, “Or God will find you and strike you down.”

To Brock, she gives a rosary that belonged to Andrea, presses it into his hand. As Jesse leaves, he hears her burst into tears.

***

Jesse still wants to go to Alaska, but it’s a hell of a bus ride to drag a seven-year-old on.

So they start with Texas. Grape Creek, to be exact. Jesse finds a carpentry job and they slowly move from staying in half a trailer to a pretty nice apartment.

From Texas, in a few years they depart for Mexico when Jesse gets the feeling someone might come looking.

Mexico needs carpenters, too, and ten-year-old Brock translates with ease, albeit with a frequent roll of his eyes until Jesse picks it up himself. They buy a little car that just barely fits the two of them but has an iPod dock, so they decide it’s a worthwhile trade-off.

When the heat dies down they head towards California but end up staying in Underwood, North Dakota, a little rural town where they know everyone by the end of the year and Brock is the sole Mexican-American student in the combined elementary/high school.

Underwood is where they buy a little farm just outside of town and raise pigs and a couple sheep, and drive out to a town called Max for something to do on the weekends.

Underwood is where Jesse drives all the way out to Bismarck, the capital, to mail the pictures he sends to Mrs. Cantillo of Brock smiling and posing with friends and even a sports trophy or two, though they’re mainly the ones from events where everyone received a prize.

Underwood is where Jesse meets a girl, visiting home from college, who tells him, “All you need for a town in North Dakota is a church and a bar… or at least one or the other,” and gives him a smile that reminds him of Jane.

Underwood is the town where Jesse opens his mouth to ask her if she’d like to get a drink – or, he thinks he’ll quip, listen to a sermon – while she’s in town, but loses his nerve.

It doesn’t usually turn out too well for Jesse and beautiful girls with shining eyes and bright smiles, and the bad luck to run into him.

Underwood is the town where Jesse starts a letter to his parents that he never finishes.

When Brock turns eighteen, he graduates with a 3.75 GPA and a full scholarship to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

A week after he puts Brock on the plane to Raleigh-Durham, Jesse collapses on the floor.

***

“Do you have a family history of lung cancer, Mr. Pinkman?”

Jesse rubs at his nose as he sits on a chair in the hospital in Garrison, thirty miles away but which feels like a hundred. 

“Yeah. My aunt had it.”

He doesn’t mention the five months of cooking meth without a mask, in an enclosed lab.

Or maybe it was the smoking that he didn’t quit until the time in captivity forced him to.

“We won’t know your full prognosis until we run more tests. But there are treatment options we can go over… is there anyone that you would like us to call?”

Jesse shakes his head and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’s filled with the irony that he’s standing where Mr. White had stood when he made the decision to become someone else, to become Heisenberg and ruin Jesse’s life in the process.

“No… My son’s away at college. I don’t want to worry him.”

He thinks of Brock. He wonders if maybe, if God had really been watching him like Mrs. Cantillo had said, maybe he had been the one to take him out of that underground prison, working through the unlikely form of Mr. White. If that was true, it could only be so that he could save Brock, raise Brock and love him with all his heart.

Any other time, he would have been a little relieved, breathe out, maybe now it was all over and he could give in, could sleep at last.

But he realizes that he wants to see Brock graduate college, get married, have children of his own. Brock still needs someone looking out for him. At twenty-five, Jesse certainly did.

He chews on his lip and looks at the doctor.

“Okay. I want to talk about those treatment options.”

After all that he’s seen, all he’s had to do… lung cancer doesn’t even seem that terrifying. He’ll find a way, after all. It’s what he does.

**The End**


End file.
